Customer Spotlight: How Couch Fest Films Uses Wufoo To Run Their Film Festival

by Wufoo | June 16, 2014

> Like the rest of the natural world, we really dig the movies. Movies in any genre, size, shape or form—all totally cool with us. So when we came across Seattle-based Couch Fest Films and learned how Wufoo’s helping to support their grassroots efforts in distributing independent films, we knew this form story had to be shared. Ready for some action? Craig Downing, the director of Couch Fest Films is here to give you the behind-the-scenes lowdown.

We’re rolling!

We are Couch Fest Films–a shorts film festival held in strangers’ houses all over the world, all on the same day! I’m the director of this scrappy film festival. Initially, we started the festival in order to help people in Seattle open their doors (metaphorically of course) to one other. We’re proud to offer this awkwardly awesome film experience for film lovers all around the world 🙂

Simply put, we’re using Wufoo to prevent us from going crazy. Fact. Before Wufoo, we had paper applications from filmmakers, notes and random bits of paper unfurling off shelves and spilling out of our pockets. We desperately needed a clean and efficient way to manage the many applications we were receiving. In fact, we use Wufoo for most interactions with our community. Wufoo helps us actually look organized as we collect film submissions, host applications, job applications, press inquiries and press accreditation applications.

There are many reasons we chose to use Wufoo. We liked that the form lives within the ecosystem of our webpage. As a team, we fought for months designing our page. After having passionate debates over whether a page margin should be 1 pixel or 2 pixels, it would’ve been such a heartbreak to have our users leave our site when using a form. So, we were relieved when we saw that Wufoo had the option of [embedding](http://help.wufoo.com/articles/en_US/SurveyMonkeyArticleType/Code-Manager) a form right into our website. Users stay within the ecosystem of our website for the entire process even when making [payments](http://www.wufoo.com/payments/). Yes!

We also loved the form logic option for our forms. Having form logic, dynamically changed the options the user is seeing on the page so that they’re only shown relevant questions and not bogged down with questions that don’t pertain to their submission. Genius!

All of our internal teams are using Wufoo as we collect info. Our film team is able to collect all the information needed from filmmakers submitting their work for the chance to play worldwide. The outreach team uses Wufoo for those interested in hosting films in their community. HR accepts job and intern [applications](http://www.wufoo.com/gallery/templates/forms/employment-application/) thanks to Wufoo. And the marketing department can quickly and easily accept press accreditation applications. We’d be crippled without the ability to easily collect info and payments internationally for our film festival.

Many times our team is sneaking around film festivals looking for the very best films to showcase. So, it’s rare that we operate as a traditional office. Typically, we kind of squat cafes around the world managing our festival. Wufoo allows us to decentralize our office. We can manage submissions online no matter where we are at in the world.

In addition, it makes it easier for us to receive international submissions since they can submit online bypassing any shipping fees. In fact, when we were invited to Iceland, Wufoo allowed us to operate with this change without any hiccups. We’re also really excited that because of Wufoo’s flexibility, we’re the first film festival in the world to be able to accept Bitcoins for film submission fees. This would’ve been impossible for us without Wufoo. Fact.

To be honest, there are so many experiences to think of. When we first discovered Wufoo, we annoyed our friends and roommates pining about the service. It was so refreshing to find a product that clearly was being used by the same people who designed it. How could we tell? Because of the details. Everything was so seamless. We noticed the interface, the endless options, the colors, the human customer service and the little funny notes built into the instructions. It’s been such a pleasure interfacing with Wufoo and it’s so evident how committed the developers are to Wufoo.

Overall, for us, it was as if Wufoo time traveled into the future, figured out exactly how we would use forms, came back from the future and then built this tool for us. You won’t be able to convince us otherwise. I know we’re gushing here but we had tried so many other options that were just okay and we felt like these other tools had been built and then abandoned by their developers. Wufoo is always adapting with the dynamically changing needs of the Interne and this attention to detail and commitment to innovation does not go unnoticed with the entire team at Couch Fest.

Here’s an e-chestbump to Wufoo for all the amazing support you’ve provided us. Totes!

Are you a budding filmmaker and interested in learning more about those awesome chest-bumpers over at Couch Fest Films? Check ’em out here.

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